It is not as cold as the weather forecasters said it would be, but it is bitterly cold. The animals handle cold in their own way, when the sun came out, they all came out of the pole barn and stood sideways, exposing as much of their skin and fur to the sun as possible. Their coats and hides reflect the sun, even in sub-zero weather a donkey’s fur is warm to the touch, they soak up heat and energy in this way to get them through a very cold night.
The old farm bucket was dug out of the ground at the first Bedlam Farm, it was one of the oldest things I found there, one of the few I brought with when we moved to our new farm. I put it up on a fence post there, and on a fencepost here. It is symbol to me, a farm bucket was a precious and valued thing. It is a barometer of time for me, it tells me about the weather, about change and the nature of farms.
At 3 p.m. Sunday, Red returned to work, I pulled him out of the pasture this morning because it was -15 and the winds were blasting snow across the pasture. He was very happy to get back to work. It seems nobody told the Weather Channel’s platoon of performers (not the fake glasses in vogue there) – or the sun – that he was not supposed to come out again until Tuesday or Wednesday, when he would shine on the smoldering remnants of civilization after yet another historic and unprecedented and imaginable storm that would change life as we know it.
The wind stopped blowing this morning, a full 48 hours before it was supposed to stop blowing. It is cold, but not so cold that it is unfamiliar here. The Round House Cafe opened and was full all day, we stopped there to help Scott (Maria runs the register if he’s busy, as he was today) and to pick up some Minnestrone soup for dinner. Without the wind, it will simply be very cold, rather than the cold of the Apocalypse we have been hearing about for days. We’ll see. It has turned into a beautiful afternoon, we got about three inches of snow, not the 8 to 16 inches promised this morning.
It is plenty cold, and the animals will have a long night. It does not seem to be a big deal.
I’ve been watching this stuff this winter, and here’s my finding. The cable weather channels seem to exaggerate every storm by about a third – let’s say between 30 and 40 per cent. The storms are real, it is good to pay attention to them, but they are insanely hyped by elaborate animated graphics that are dramatic but incomprehensible, by anchors wearing fake glasses to look smart, by Draconian predictions of catastrophic possibilites,and by stories and videos about animal rescues, human drownings, chilling avalanches and tornadoes and typhoons. Good Lord, if these people have to carry us through climate change, we are doomed in more ways than one.
If you are just interested in the weather, check out the government’s National Weather Service at weather.gov. It’s pretty calm and straightforward there, even if the writing is a little dull. But they actually predict the weather, they don’t name the storms, and what they say will happen usually happens. Chalk one up for big government, popcorn and Anne Tyler. We were ready. So is Red.
After Tess dies, someone gave Maria this sheep, which appeared today on the windowsill, as curator I assigned it to the windowsill gallery, overlooking the barns.
Even the snowshoes seem to need snowshoes. Maria often goes snowshoeing out in the woods behind the farmhouse, sometimes she goes by herself, sometimes with her friends. Her snowshoes looked a bit lost to me, sitting out on the woodpile. I am almost to the point where I can do some snowshoeing myself, I think there is an extra pair lying around, I think I would love it and my legs are getting strong enough to do it.
